Articles

A little less than a year ago, the Electrical Worker told you about a crisis in our democracy. The picture was dark. Tens of millions of American citizens live in gerrymandered electoral districts with borders surgically created to keep incumbent politicians in office. Millions more voters are locked out of the voting booth entirely.

Bringing his utility truck to a stop at a traffic light south of San Diego on a late January morning, Martin Barraza was shocked to see an overturned sedan, its crushed hood and front roof pressing against the pavement.

Missouri added 25,000 working people to its union membership last year, propelled by a major right-to-work win victory where Show Me State workers made a compelling public case for the value of unions.

After 38 years in the telecom industry and 35 years as an IBEW member in his native Illinois, Randy Phillips wasn’t quite ready to call it a retirement when he left AT&T in 2011. He came from a strong union family with a tradition of fighting for working people.

Retired Manchester, Maine, Local 1837 member Cynthia Phinney and Chicago Local 134 apprentice Lily Wu have been invited as official guests to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night from the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

More than 100 million people in the United States alone will watch the Super Bowl Sunday night on CBS. And, as usual, the network will rely heavily on IBEW broadcasting members to provide a world-class viewing event.

As the federal government shutdown drags on with no end in sight, more and more federal employees are going without. IBEW members, including those at Corpus Christi, Texas, Local 278, are stepping in to help.

You have the flu.
Modern medicine’s solution is for you to drag yourself to the car, try not to kill anyone as you drive through a pounding headache, then wait who-knows-how-long on a sticky plastic couch to see a doctor you don’t know for a prescription. And you’ll pay for the privilege.

As Interstate 68 curves through Cumberland, Md., the speed limit drops from 70 miles per hour to 40, providing drivers an opportunity to glimpse a historic church that once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Typically, the solution to the stagnant number of women in construction – it’s been stuck at roughly 3 percent for decades – is to recruit more women. The BC Centre for Women in the Trades is taking a different approach: retention.

On Jan. 10, the 20th of day of federal government shutdown, employees gathered outside the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. and in cities across the country to issue a message to Congress and the White House: Do your job so we can do ours.

Fed up with their deteriorating office environment, a majority of the employees at a utility call center in Connecticut recently voted to join the IBEW in a united effort to improve their working conditions.

On what is expected to be the 20th day of the federal government shutdown, the AFL-CIO is organizing a rally to call for an end to the partial government stoppage. More than 30 unions, including the IBEW, are co-sponsoring the event.

A staggering 86 members of Vacaville, Calif, Local 1245 found nothing but ash and rubble left of their homes in late November when they were allowed to return to the scene of the Camp Fire, the most catastrophic and deadly fire in the state’s history.

IBEW Director of Business Development Ray Kasmark recently was elected chairman of the National Lighting Bureau, a non-profit lighting-education organization backed by IBEW and a number of other associations and government agencies.

With visions of presents under every child’s tree, one of Santa’s busiest elves and the big-hearted electricians at his day job are helping spread Christmas magic across California’s Santa Barbara County.

It is not every day that someone goes to work and returns home a hero, but for three members of Milwaukee LocIt’s not every day that a governor is booed at the annual Christmas tree lighting. Then again, it’s not every day that a political party goes into overdrive trying to consolidate power in a lame duck legislative session.

It is not every day that someone goes to work and returns home a hero, but for three members of Milwaukee Local 494, that’s just what happened when they helped save two men and a baby from a house fire.

International President Emeritus Edwin D. Hill, a transformative trade unionist who modernized and shepharded his beloved IBEW through one of the deepest and most painful recessions in history, died Saturday, Dec. 1. He was 81.

International President Emeritus Edwin D. Hill, a transformative trade unionist who modernized and shepharded his beloved IBEW through one of the deepest and most painful recessions in history, died Saturday, Dec. 1. He was 81.

Canada’s government announced changes to the country’s federal labor standards Nov. 1, and advocates say they will improve working conditions for the thousands of Canadians who work in federally regulated industries.

The National Labor Relations Board was originally established to protect the rights of working people, but a series of recent decisions by the board – now dominated by Donald Trump appointees – rolls back years of employee protections, limiting the ability of workers to come together to win better wages and benefits and restricting their freedom to speak out on the job.

Since taking office as New Jersey’s First District representative in Congress, Folsom, N.J., Local 351 member Donald Norcross has been one of the highest profile proponents of apprenticeships in the nation.
Norcross answered questions from young apprentices on the show about how his life was changed by joining the IBEW.

The scene at the construction site seemed to unfold in slow motion, shop steward Bill Cole recalls, thinking about the moments after an accident involving an unstable jersey barrier left a worker shrieking in pain

Project labor agreements are effective tools for helping ensure that all workers on a particular job receive fair wages. They boost apprenticeship opportunities and provide paths for local contractors to bid successfully on PLA-covered projects. But not everyone agrees about their value, as evidenced by recent developments in British Columbia and Manitoba.

With ballots still being counted in some races, this much is certain: At least 743 past and present union members will give voice to workers in statehouses, Congress and other political offices when new sessions convene in January.

From union-bashing flyers to deceptive emails, targeted ads on social media, intrusive phone calls and even unwelcome visitors at the door, the crusade against America’s public workers has gone into overdrive since the Supreme Court’s bruising decision in Janus v. AFSCME in June.

With Election Day almost here, IBEW members are doing all they can to get out the vote for races across the country. In the Midwest, that includes a handful of governor’s races critical to the futures of working families.

Fighting for pro-worker candidates on November’s ballot, IBEW members across the country are knocking on doors, making phone calls, writing postcards, leafleting job sites – anything and everything to get out the vote on Election Day.

The most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the Florida panhandle in at least 150 years smashed houses, sent a storm surge dozens of miles inland, tore up thousands of trees and cut power to an estimated 1.3 million customers. At least 11 people have been confirmed dead.

A push is on in Canada to designate July 10 as National Lineworker Appreciation Day there, and IBEW International President Lonnie Stephenson is encouraging all members in the union’s First District to help make it happen.

As Washington, D.C., Local 1200 marks a year battling for a fair contract at CBS-affiliate WUSA-9, members of Congress and other area leaders are urging the station’s corporate owners Tegna Inc. to show its workers the respect they deserve at the bargaining table.

A prominent member of Republican leadership recently announced support for cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits to pay for the ballooning budget deficit created by last year’s sprawling federal tax cuts.

Taking a stand for the workers who keep their cities running, more than 40 mayors coast-to-coast have signed a pledge affirming their commitment to public employees’ rights and the unions that fight for them.

Altice USA became one of the dominant cable companies in New Jersey two years ago when it acquired Cablevision. But the company’s attitude toward its workers after the deal wrapped up convinced technicians that IBEW representation was right for them.

The Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board took a big step backward on Sept. 13 when it announced it was proposing a new rule on its joint employer standard, a decision that could negatively impact millions of working people, including some IBEW members.

Even before Hurricane Florence made landfall last Friday, thousands of IBEW members from more than 17 states and parts of Canada had already been mobilized and were making their way toward the storm’s projected route, ready to repair damage the storm was expected to leave behind.

Folsom, N.J., Local 351 inside wireman and business agent before his 2014 election to Congress, Rep. Donald Norcross is more familiar than most U.S. House members with the roadblocks to economic security for tens of millions of American workers.

The Hudson River crossing between Nyack and Tarrytown, N.Y., is a terrible place to build a bridge. The river is three miles across, one of the widest spots on the entire river, where, in places, the bedrock sits deep beneath hundreds of feet of sandy riverbed.

A Republican lawsuit being argued in federal court in Texas this week would gut Obamacare and strip affordable coverage – or any at all – from tens of millions of Americans with everything from high cholesterol and asthma to cancer, heart disease and other life-threatening medical conditions.

Despite a well-documented labor shortage in the midst of a construction boom, the U.S. Department of Labor shockingly rejected an application for Canadian members to work on construction of the Plant Vogtle nuclear station in Georgia.

It’s been described as Procter & Gamble’s biggest
construction project ever, and dozens of electricians represented by
Cumberland, Md., Local 307 are working diligently to make the half-a-billion-dollar
manufacturing facility a reality.

Canada’s recent decision to buy a western provinces pipeline and oversee its controversial expansion has many in the IBEW’s First District hoping for an increase in job opportunities for members in British Columbia and Alberta.

Last year’s California wildfires killed dozens of people and left more than 2,100 square miles of costly destruction in their wake. Now, with the 2018 wildfire season already underway, IBEW members in the Golden State are working with utility companies and lawmakers to craft fair legislative solutions to help lessen wildfire frequency and severity and to ensure that future wildfire victims will continue to have access to their due compensation — all without bankrupting utilities in the process.

In a resounding victory for the IBEW and working families, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a right-to-work law on Aug. 7 that had been passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature and signed by former Gov. Eric Greitens.

In union-dense New York City, Local 3 has long operated a medical clinic for members from its headquarters in Queens. Its nearly 30,000 members could populate a respectably-sized small town, so it’s little wonder the local has the means to offer its Pension Hospitalization and Benefit Plan participants a wide range of services, from apprentice entry exams to X-rays.

Opponents of Missouri’s anti-worker Proposition A seem to have done everything right. First, they collected more than three times the signatures needed to get a referendum on the ballot to repeal the state’s right-to-work law.

The IBEW and others in the electrical industry celebrated National Lineworker Appreciation Day on July 10. The timing was fitting in Southern California, where hundreds of IBEW members worked to repair power outages caused by some of the area’s hottest temperatures on record.

A lot has changed since 1998, when Boston Local 103 retiree Susan Eisenberg published her first book detailing the struggles of women like her in the building trades. And yet, as she notes in the preface to the recently-released second edition, a lot has stayed the same.

The multi-year campaign to cripple public sector unions did not begin with the Janus case in 2017, and it did not end with the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in June. Now the billionaires who funded the campaign are turning their attention, and their wallets, to convincing workers to quit their unions.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would cement the court’s big-business, anti-worker majority for years to come, squarely positioning all three branches of government against the rights and financial security of working people. His track record on the federal bench – including a 2016 ruling against an IBEW local – proves it.

Strolling the tidy green grounds along the gently curving streets of Electchester, Queens, you pass classic red-brick apartment buildings, playgrounds, a grade school, a public library, a police substation, a small shopping center, a medical clinic, even a 48-lane bowling alley.

One of three IBEW bargaining units that represents Frontier Communications employees has reached a tentative four-year agreement with the company that guarantees wage increases and protects the current pension system.

IBEW railroad branch members covered under the U.S. National Freight Agreement ratified the proposed 2015-2019 contract in May, International President Lonnie Stephenson announced, and arbitration is set to resolve the few remaining issues.

Jennie Sherwood bursts with enthusiasm as she talks about her run for the Nevada statehouse. And it’s plain to see that the first-time candidate is brimming with a natural energy that she isn’t afraid to let show, even in the often-stodgy business of politics.

Missouri voters will still have their chance to repeal the state’s recently-passed right-to-work law, but Republican shenanigans mean the vote will come this summer instead of during November’s general election.

Nearly eight years of high-stakes lobbying by the banking industry paid off this week when the U.S. House voted to dismantle regulations that pulled the country out of the Great Recession, put millions of Americans back to work and protected consumers from financial ruin.

Working families in Michigan were dealt a break last week in the Republican Legislature’s extraordinary long-running attack on the state’s prevailing wage, but the state’s building trades warned the reprieve may be only temporary.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and other Massachusetts political heavyweights joined hundreds of IBEW members on the state’s South Coast May 12 to rally against the outsourcing of more than 150 local jobs to Mexico.

For “tireless efforts to rally fellow union members for conservation,” the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance honored Washington, D.C., Local 26 Business Manager George Hogan this spring for accomplishments that include restoring a popular Potomac River fishing pier.

For two decades, IBEW members across the U.S. and Canada have been sending us the images that tell the stories of who we are and the work we do. We've been proud to share those pictures with you, and this year we're celebrating a milestone - the IBEW's 20th Annual Photo Contest.

An award honoring a successful labor-management effort to save jobs and fight for a clean energy future in Illinois was presented in March to Dean Apple, business manager at Downers Grove, Ill., Local 15, and to Exelon CEO Chris Crane.

For nearly three decades, energy consumers have been sending a clear message: they want clean, affordable and reliable power. Billions of dollars have been invested in scrubbing coal, switching to natural gas and building renewables.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership had to be renegotiated after the United States pulled out of the controversial trade agreement in January 2017. Yet, even under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pro-labor government, the proposed deal remains a concern for Canada’s skilled construction workers.

In a major victory for the IBEW and all unions, the U.S. Senate failed to pass the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act on April 16, avoiding what would have been the biggest rollback in workers’ rights since the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

Labor and working families in Wisconsin got a boost on April 3 when IBEW members and labor allies racked up impressive victories in municipal and judicial elections, sparking enthusiasm they hope will carry into the November elections.

A controversial Department of Labor rule that critics alleged would have allowed employers to steal their employees’ tips was stymied last month, but not before the department suppressed evidence of the potential damage to working families.

A massive pipeline project spanning the southern half of Pennsylvania has helped bring steady jobs for hundreds of IBEW members across the state, but after four long years, the first phase is finally nearing completion with the second close behind.

On Feb. 26, the National Labor Relations Board reversed its previous ruling on the controversial Browning-Ferris case, a stunning backtrack of its December decision to undo the Obama-era rule aimed at protecting working people from unaccountable corporations. Are you looking to advance your career in the telecommunications industry?

Every April, members of Augusta, Ga., Local 1579 work at nearby Augusta National Golf Club during The Masters, providing world-class electricians during one of the golfing world’s highest-profile events.

Michael Soriano had a college degree in hand and had worked in jobs he enjoyed. But nearly 25 years ago, he changed his career path and followed his father into the trades when he began a New York Local 3 apprenticeship.

With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to issue a major anti-union decision later this year, and the National Labor Relations Board rolling back worker protections left and right, the future might seem bleak for unions. But there’s reason for hope.

IBEW members in Kentucky joined with labor allies to put a stop to the state’s attempt to roll back unemployment benefits. The attack on working families would have had far-reaching consequences for members of the IBEW’s construction branch, in particular.

The first 24 hours are crucial when you’re nursing an emaciated horse back to health, says Tammy Barnett, co-owner of the Horse Shoe Equine Rescue. That’s why she’s spent entire nights outside, in the freezing cold, monitoring and slowly feeding the neglected animals. Now, thanks to volunteers including members of Terre Haute, Ind., Local 725, those nights are over.

Vice President Mike Pence was governor of Indiana in 2015 when the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature passed a repeal of the state’s prevailing wage laws, arguing the measure would save taxpayers money without cutting workers’ salaries.

Construction and Maintenance Department Director Jim Ross testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy Feb. 27 about how the federal government can improve the state of the nation’s energy infrastructure.

It didn’t take a miracle for members of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Local 163 to turn a closed Catholic school into an IBEW-NECA joint training facility, but leaders hope the building’s holy vibes will continue to bless the work being done inside

IBEW members working underground have experienced sweeping changes in recent years. Private contractors are performing an ever-larger share of the work once done by public utilities. Increasingly technical equipment has put more demands on everyone. And concerns about safety linger, in part because there's been little standardization throughout the industry.

Instead of vertigo, Buonocore, a journeyman inside wireman and specialist climber for New York Local 3, captured his mind-bending view of fellow Local 3 member Chris Bugeaunu hanging from the spire of One World Trade Center.

Embracing the IBEW’s Code of Excellence, the Tennessee Valley Authority and its union workforce announced a historic partnership Feb. 6, intended to strengthen shared values and inspire new levels of cooperation between labor and management.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in an ominous case threatening the ability of workers to bargain collectively for fair wages, benefits and job conditions, the latest assault on unions financed by some of America's richest families and corporations.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what some are calling the most important union rights case of the century. And many labor leaders and working people are bracing for the worst when a decision is handed down later this year.

Two days before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case that could have a devastating effect on working people's collective-bargaining rights, IBEW International President Lonnie R. Stephenson is encouraging members across the country to take part in a national "Working People's Day of Action."

U.S. House Democrats unveiled a sweeping plan Thursday to invest $1 trillion in the nation’s decaying infrastructure, creating 16 million new American jobs by tackling everything from rickety bridges and railways to safe water, renewable energy and high-speed internet access.

One of the largest transmission projects in North America is coming to an end, and when it does, it will have connected two Canadian provinces for the first time and employed approximately 3,500 IBEW members along the way.

The AFL-CIO and Mexico’s National Union of Workers formally complained to the Department of Labor that Mexico is violating the already low labor standards of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Recruiting women into the trades is getting a little easier, Lisa Langevin has found over more than 15 years as an electrician. But getting them to stay is another story – even as construction is booming across British Columbia.

Congress is close to passing the largest retreat on labor rights since the implementation of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and several wavering Senate Democrats will cast critical votes deciding whether the anti-worker effort succeeds or fails.

West Frankfort, Ill., Local 702 Business Manager Steve Hughart learned recently that a 96-year-old widow of a retired IBEW member was having trouble accessing her late husband’s benefits. Business agent Jason Woolard didn’t just help her secure those benefits; he went to her home and spent several hours helping get her finances in order.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is down at least 40 workplace safety inspectors since early 2017, a troubling trend attributable to Donald Trump’s hiring freeze coupled with attrition. Budget cuts under consideration by the White House are likely to make matters even worse for worker safety.

The U.S. unemployment rate has remained in the low single digits for the past several years, a sign of a strengthening economy since the 2008 recession ran roughshod over millions of working Americans. But finding a solid middle-class job can still be a struggle for some, especially for someone who has spent time behind bars.

The National Labor Relations Board put its first Republican majority in years to quick use, issuing a flurry of decisions in a single week in early December that unraveled important pro-worker gains made over the last eight years.